Related papers: Stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo
In sampling tasks, it is common for target distributions to be known up to a normalizing constant. However, in many situations, even evaluating the unnormalized distribution can be costly or infeasible. This issue arises in scenarios such…
Exponential random graph models are extremely difficult models to handle from a statistical viewpoint, since their normalising constant, which depends on model parameters, is available only in very trivial cases. We show how inference can…
Rich data generating mechanisms are ubiquitous in this age of information and require complex statistical models to draw meaningful inference. While Bayesian analysis has seen enormous development in the last 30 years, benefitting from the…
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling is computationally expensive, especially for complex models. Alternative methods make simplifying assumptions about the posterior to reduce computational burden, but their impact on predictive…
Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) is a class of algorithms that approximate high-dimensional expectations of a Markov chain. SMC algorithms typically include a resampling step. There are many possible ways to resample, but the relative…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms have long been the main workhorses of Bayesian inference. Among them, Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) has recently become very popular due to its efficiency resulting from effective use of the…
It is well known that Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods scale poorly with dataset size. A popular class of methods for solving this issue is stochastic gradient MCMC. These methods use a noisy estimate of the gradient of the log…
Nonlinear non-Gaussian state-space models arise in numerous applications in statistics and signal processing. In this context, one of the most successful and popular approximation techniques is the Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) algorithm,…
In this paper we propose an efficient stochastic optimization algorithm to search for Bayesian experimental designs such that the expected information gain is maximized. The gradient of the expected information gain with respect to…
Applying standard Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms to large data sets is computationally expensive. Both the calculation of the acceptance probability and the creation of informed proposals usually require an iteration through the…
We consider the efficient use of an approximation within Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), with subsequent importance sampling (IS) correction of the Markov chain inexact output, leading to asymptotically exact inference. We detail…
Kernel methods have revolutionized the fields of pattern recognition and machine learning. Their success, however, critically depends on the choice of kernel parameters. Using Gaussian process (GP) classification as a working example, this…
Posterior sampling is a task of central importance in Bayesian inference. For many applications in Bayesian meta-analysis and Bayesian transfer learning, the prior distribution is unknown and needs to be estimated from samples. In practice,…
Monte Carlo methods, such as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC), remain the most regularly-used approach for implementing Bayesian inference. However, the computational cost of these approaches usually scales worse than linearly with the…
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is a well-established family of algorithms which are primarily used in Bayesian statistics to sample from a target distribution when direct sampling is challenging. Single instances of MCMC methods are widely…
Approximate inference in probabilistic graphical models (PGMs) can be grouped into deterministic methods and Monte-Carlo-based methods. The former can often provide accurate and rapid inferences, but are typically associated with biases…
Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods are a powerful but computationally expensive way of performing non-parametric Bayesian inference. MCMC proposals which utilise gradients, such as Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC), can better explore the…
Stochastic gradient Langevin dynamics (SGLD) and stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (SGHMC) are two popular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for Bayesian inference that can scale to large datasets, allowing to sample from…
We propose a novel Continuation Multi Level Monte Carlo (CMLMC) algorithm for weak approximation of stochastic models. The CMLMC algorithm solves the given approximation problem for a sequence of decreasing tolerances, ending when the…
Monte Carlo (MC) methods are widely used for Bayesian inference and optimization in statistics, signal processing and machine learning. A well-known class of MC methods are Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. In order to foster…